


She Walks Among Vipers

by auroreanrave



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Happy Ending, Past Relationship(s), Recovery, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 10:32:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13432848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroreanrave/pseuds/auroreanrave
Summary: Elia Martell and her children and the ending they deserved.





	She Walks Among Vipers

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys. So as part of my now-traditional birthday celebrations, here's a little fic I've been working on since the most recent season of 'Game of Thrones' ended. My favourite unseen character is Elia Martell who suffered so much at as a result of her husband and the men around her and had an unjust, brutal end.
> 
> This is my attempt to give her the life and the happy ending she rightfully deserved, as well as a road for her recovery following such a trauma as the Sack of Kings Landing. There are tiny allusions to trauma, but none are graphic or specific, and this is infinitely more about Elia finding herself and becoming whole again.
> 
> Title comes from a line of dialogue in the books wherein Oberyn refers to Elia as 'she walked among vipers and none would bite her'. I changed the tense to reflect my version of Elia. I truly hope you enjoy this as much as I did writing it.

The journey back to Dorne is frantic, heat beating down upon their carriages and horses. Elia spends the whole time strung out and tired, sheltering Rhaenys and Aegon under blankets as they sleep fitfully. Areo Hotah looks after the three of them, silent affection crinkling the corners of his eyes.

Eight long days after the sack of King's Landing, the horses arrive outside of the Water Gardens. Elia takes Aegon to her breast, and Rhaenys in her hand, and walks her way unsteadily towards the palace.

Her brother Doran is there, his chair wheeling across the smooth stones, tears prickling in his eyes, but it's Oberyn that rushes across the courtyard to meet them. He pulls Elia to his chest, kisses her across her face, bends to pick up Rhaenys who giggles in delight at her uncle.

"You're home," Oberyn says, a hoarse gasp, his hands cradling Elia's head in his hands. She feels overwhelmed and sleepy and unsure of everything in her life.

So, because if she trusts anything in her life, it's her brothers, she lets Oberyn pull her towards the palace and Doran and the safety of the walls.

 

* * *

 

 

The maester gives her some dreamwine with honey to help her sleep, and even then it takes a stronger dose, despite her frail body. The children sleep beside her at first in her old room in the palace, but on the second day, Oberyn takes them so she can get more sleep and rest fully.

Elia sits on her bed, and thinks about Rhaegar, about his shining eyes and smile, the feel of his body next to hers in their marital bed. She thinks about the news of his defeat on the battlefield, about him choosing Lyanna Stark over herself and their children. She thinks and thinks and thinks, and then takes more dreamwine when she can think no longer.

 

* * *

 

 

On the fourth day, she awakens. Not fully refreshed, perhaps, but her tears have stemmed, and she wants to see her children. Her room is as beautiful as it was a child, and she spends time as the handmaidens bathe and change her taking in all the details she once took for granted. The little suns adorning the pillars of her room, the sweet solar she used to pray in, the way that the sea would carry the smell of honeysuckle to her from her window.

She finds Oberyn and Doran and her children at the breakfast table, and Rhaenys runs for her, burying her face in Elia's lap. "Mama!"

Elia kisses her daughter's hair, curled into the latest Dornish style, and kisses her son's chubby cheeks, and sits down between Oberyn and Rhaenys. She eats some bread and fruit and drinks some water, and she feels as though she's run across the whole of Dorne.

"What has happened?" she asks Doran. Doran plays with Arianne for a moment, letting her put a bit of bread in her mouth and waiting until she's swallowed it down.

"Robert Baratheon is king. Your husband is gone at the hands of him."

"The others? Rhaella and...?"

"Fled south with Viserys and some of their court. They'll hide on Dragonstone no doubt." Doran takes Elia's hand in his own. "I have not declared fealty to the new king, yet. We need to secure your safety."

"If they try to take my children," Elia promises, "I will not let them."

"Of course they will try," Oberyn mutters disdainfully, picking at his nails with a knife. "We won't let them come anywhere near, of course."

 

* * *

 

 

The Water Gardens has always been one of Elia's favourite places in the whole world. It reminds her of gentle summers and sweet days and nights, cool and fresh and carefree.

It proves to have a similar effect now. Oberyn wades into the waters with Rhaenys to teach her to swim and Elia watches in the shade, Aegon to her breast, enjoying the climate.

It's unspoken that she'll live here now, probably for the rest of her life. Elia doesn't mind, of course - in fact, it's rather a comfort, after the horrors she and her children have endured. She wants to give them a home, a place of comfort and security and peace, a place where they can be children and be the best they can be.

The missive from Robert Baratheon arrives one morning. Doran doesn't pretend to hide it from her.

"They're seeking me to bend the knee to Baratheon. They suspect you and the babes are back here, but they can't prove anything. Even if they do, they won't try anything," says Doran. "We have too many cards in our deck."

"What should we do?" Elia asks. "If they... if they try..."

"I'll offer renunciation of the throne," Doran says, smoothly. He's known this all along, Elia realises. "Rhaenys and Aegon will still have a place in Dornish royal court. They'll live happy lives, as will we all, and we can let the Baratheons sit on that damned chair all they like."

Oberyn shrugs. "It secures their legacy, and they'll be more worried about the missing Targaryens. If Aegon and Rhaenys officially renounce their claim forevermore, the chances of an uprising would be next to nothing."

"But if Lord Tywin..." Elia says. She's scared to the marrow about him. The man who would have killed her and her babies without a second thought, all for the glory and power. A man who dreamed in blood.

"Lord Tywin," Oberyn said, eyes flashing, "has more important things to be worrying about. Like the pig he's selling his daughter to."

Elia nods and turns back to watching the children splash in the fountains. She trust her brothers, she does. She just hopes one day, that the fear will wash clean off her shoulders, and she can rest easy for once.

 

* * *

 

 

Months pass by in purgatory. Elia sleeps, steeped in dreamwine and memories of a husband turned traitor and of a father in law willing to burn the kingdom down. She eats only a little and sleeps more in the shade of the Water Gardens, as if her body is in need of an infinite rest, an aching void beneath her feet.

She mourns and then doesn't mourn, the weight of her losses diminishing with passing days. Her brothers worry, of course, but they always have, and Elia would normally rush to ease their concern, but her mind is lost at the moment. She struggles to gain a foothold and drinks more dreamwine to forget this.

One morning the sun doesn't shine as strongly, and there is a missive waiting for her when she arrives at breakfast. Aegon and Rhaeyns are nowhere to be found. She sits at the table and opens the scroll with trembling fingers.

The neat, looping cursive of Jon Arryn meets her eyes. Her heart stops, just for a fraction of a beat, before her eyes slip over the words there.

Jon speaks of the glorious reign of King Robert Baratheon, King of the Seven Kingdoms and First of His Name. He speaks of the peace brought to the kingdoms, to Westeros, of how Robert's marriage to the blonde lioness Cersei Lannister is a blessed union.

She skims through the missive and finds the words she has been looking for, to her surprise, in the final paragraph.

Jon Arryn speaks of the unilateral decision to annul the rights of Elia's babies to any crown or throne, and speaks of a truce between Dorne and the crown in exchange for safety and peace.

She's free. Elia and Rhaenys and Aegon are free.

Elia feels a sob - or not a sob, perhaps, perhaps a shuddering breath, a sigh of relief - escape her body. Beside her, Oberyn, as quiet as a panther, gathers her close, presses his mouth to her brow. Reads the note and sighs into his bones.

"It's over, it's over," he says, and Elia feels a second wave of relief hit her, almost physical. Jon Arryn's missive crumples in Oberyn's hands.

She's finally home.

 

* * *

 

Elia begins to recover.

Her days are quiet, and she sleeps more than she ever has before. As a child she used to rise with the dawn and sneak out with Oberyn for early games or to sit and read in the warm fresh rays of the sun. For a while, she sleeps deep every night, the dreamwine gone, and has nightmares dark enough to blot out the sun, awakening as the sun rises to chase the visions away.

She's safe and at home with her family. She has no desire to marry again, and the circumstances of her previous marriage are enough to chase away even the most foolhardy or arrogant of suitors. Elia is tired of marriage, of sex. She sleeps every night with a guard outside her door and sweet moonlight on her pillow, and she calls it good.

She begins to wake with the dawn again and takes delight in plying her children with food and taking them down to the Water Gardens, the heat from the Sun pulsing through her skin like a balm. Oberyn journeys a little, too restless by far, but he's never more than a day or two away, bringing back trinkets for Elia and Rhaenys and Aegon.

Her body begins to fill out, begins to replace the gauntness that had surrounded her in Kings Landing like a funereal shroud. She eats well and sleeps better and laughs more. She takes to retiring with a book at night like she once loved to, histories and stories and poetry, and even when it reminds her of Rhaegar or Lyanna or Aerys, she keeps reading until they fade from her mind for a while.

There will be politics, Doran reminds her, but Dorne is largely still its own country now, and Doran seems content to let the Westerosi flounder and fight under Robert's rule. They have the sun and the sea and acres of possibilities waiting for them. They have everything they need.

One morning, Elia Martell wakes with the rising sun, dawn pink and gold in her vision, an ocean of clean, clear, sweet sleep behind her, and smiles at the endless horizon rushing to embrace her.


End file.
